Beekeeper's 'magic' turns honey into sweet success story

A beekeeper in Luodong village, Rongshui Miao autonomous county of Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, harvests honey.[Photo provided to China Daily]

The time has come for bees to collect nectar from blooming vegetation in the lush mountains of East China's Fujian province, and Zheng Quanfu, a local beekeeper, is all set to work his "magic" once again.

Zheng was a small farmer in Yangkeng village of Shunchang county only five years ago, but a training session at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in 2015 transformed his life.

During the session, he learned advanced techniques to improve the survival rate of bees and the quality of honey.

Thanks to such techniques, Zheng's beehives have grown from one to 500, earning the lean, sharp-eyed beekeeper a new nickname, "magician".

Before the training, his life hit rock bottom when the only breadwinner of the family was left bedridden after a car accident in 2014. "I couldn't even borrow 100 yuan ($14), because no one had faith in my ability to repay," he recalls that hard time.

With two young sons to feed and sick family members to attend to, Zheng had to find a way out. He pinned all his hopes on bee breeding.

Zheng used to keep bees using local methods. He collected cymbidium from a nearby mountain around April to attract the bees. After luring the buzzing creatures into beehives with molasses, he carried the bees back home to breed.

Although the mountain is blessed with dense woods and abundant nectar sources, his amateur methods failed to attract enough bees.

Determined to make a living by beekeeping, Zheng joined a local cooperative, which provided him with cymbidium sprouts and assistance in planting, bee breeding and honey production.

The cooperative even enrolled him in a 20-day training session at the College of Bee Science of the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in late 2015.

He remembers vividly how a teacher explained the division of labor in a honey bee colony with stuffed toys. The toy with a mobile phone represented bees in charge of messaging and the one with a basket represented those collecting pollen from plants.